


Hey, Pretty Thing

by punkrockgaia



Category: Welcome to Night Vale
Genre: Angst, Glam Trash Cecil Palmer, M/M, Punk Rock Earl Harlan, Smoking, implied unhealthy behavior, really nothing fluffy here at all
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-10-20
Updated: 2014-10-20
Packaged: 2018-02-21 23:26:22
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 288
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2486105
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/punkrockgaia/pseuds/punkrockgaia
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>What's in a name?</p>
            </blockquote>





	Hey, Pretty Thing

**Author's Note:**

> This is short, like, really short, so my apologies for that...

Cecil leans against the still-warm brick and smokes, nerves tingling with a pleasant anticipation. The side door to Rico’s creaks, and he turns, a reptile happiness seeping through his veins. 

Earl exits the pizza parlor, cheeks flushed crimson. He grins when he sees Cecil.

“Hey, there, pretty thing.”

Cecil freezes. Those words aren't Earl’s, but he knows the mouths Earl had stolen them from, mouths he’s watched Cecil suck the bitter liquor from underneath the sheltering blanket of strobe and bass. They call him "pretty thing" because that’s what he is to them, a pretty **thing** , a glittery receptacle, for their cum, for their fantasies, sometimes for their anger and the fear of what they really are. Faceless, always faceless, everywhere. A faceless intern, a faceless Voice on the radio, a faceless throat or ass or cock.

 _No,_ he wants to scream, wants to get down on his knees on the gravel and broken glass of the alley and beg. _No, I am not a pretty thing. I am the antithesis; I am a ravenous shadow. I am Cecil Gershwin Palmer, or Cecil, or Cee, or Cee-Cee, or whatever name you want to hang on all this nothing, but see me, Earl! See me, please? See my nothing. Please._

He does not say this. 

Instead, he takes a long, slow drag from his cigarette, then exhales, watching the phantoms the smoke makes in the still night air. He smiles, a smile that does not reach his eyes. He reaches out, takes a studded jacket collar between his hands, presses until the studs dig into his palms and make them sting and ache. 

“Hey, yourself,” he says, and raises his eyes to the heavens. The Void stares back, empty.


End file.
